Category

April 2009

  • Penne with Broccoli Rabe

    Penne with Broccoli Rabe

    Broccoli rabe is usually the first thing I buy at the farmer’s market when the weather gets warmer. It’s a transitional vegetable: something that bridges us from the dark and murky vegetables of winter to the bright and sprightly vegetables of summer. Raw, it tastes rather fresh and green, but cooked, it takes on all…

  • A Springy Lunch at Al Di La

    A Springy Lunch at Al Di La

    Al Di La is one of my favorite restaurants: not just in Park Slope, but anywhere. As anyone who’s been there for dinner knows, they don’t take reservations and often the wait can be more than an hour long. So going to Al Di La is often a special occasion, a complicated affair that requires…

  • The Barefoot Contessa’s Wheat Berry Salad

    The Barefoot Contessa’s Wheat Berry Salad

    There are many words one might use to describe me–“enthusiastic,” “smiley,” “mildly irritating”–but “hippie” probably isn’t one of them. Sure, I may walk around in sandals in the summer, but who doesn’t? And true, Janice is my favorite Muppet and my aunt Cindy (my dad’s sister) was photographed blowing a bubble at Woodstock (see here)…

  • Baked

    Baked

    Ok, class, we’re about to take a field trip: does everyone have a trip buddy? Find a buddy now. David Lebovitz, no, you can’t be buddies with Perez Hilton: he’s not in our class. This is a food class, not a gossip class, ok? Now then, I hope you’re all hungry because we’re about to…

  • Green Almonds

    Green Almonds

    On the cover of the Zuni Cafe Cookbook you will see three nectarines, several slices of prosciutto, and there, at 9 o’clock on the plate, a handful of green almonds, two of them split open, their kernels separated on to the black plate. This image, to me, has always evoked a precious, inaccessible other world–a…

  • Easy French Toast

    Easy French Toast

    There are three kinds of people in this world: pancake people, waffle people, and people who like French toast. I’d put myself in the middle category: I’m a waffle person. I like the texture of waffles, I like the little holes that catch the syrup, and I love the way they smell when they’re being…

  • Spaghetti with Ramps at Franny’s

    Spaghetti with Ramps at Franny’s

    The “r” word made its first appearance on Twitter last week when one of the many food people I follow announced that they spotted ramps at the Union Square Greenmarket. “Ramps are here!” another cheered and, as happens every year, the ramp-lovers went on a rampage. I’m a ramp liker, not a ramp lover. What…

  • The Churros That Saved The Dinner Party

    The Churros That Saved The Dinner Party

    Have you ever had a son or daughter who plays the piano like a real champ, such a champ that you invite all your friends over one night and set up a little concert–with fliers and cocktaials and a video camera on a tripod–and when your son or daughter finally sits down to play they…

  • The Scavenger Hunt Winners at Tom Colicchio’s “Toast to the Children”

    The Scavenger Hunt Winners at Tom Colicchio’s “Toast to the Children”

    At last, the winners of The Great New York Foodie Photo Scavenger Hunt–Rachel Wilke, our first place winner (seen on the right w/her photographer co-scavenger hunter, Mike Piaker) and Stephanie Krasinski, our second place winner (seen on the left with her photographer co-scavenger hunter Andrew Teichman)–were able to cash in on their prize, joining me…

  • Pasta alla Puttanesca

    Pasta alla Puttanesca

    I hope you don’t consider it uncouth for me to talk about whores at such an early hour, especially on a Monday, but it’s impossible to write about Pasta Puttanesca without sounding like a cast member of The Sopranos. (If that’s the case, I should pronounce the word: “whoo-ore.”) You see, Pasta alla Puttanesca translates…